Land Value Taxation will solve many of the 21st century's most serious social, economic and environmental problems, and promote justice, fairness and sustainability. We CAN have a world in which all can prosper.

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Pages I refer to often

Progress and Poverty, by Henry GeorgeHere are links to online editions of George's landmark book, Progress & Poverty, including audio and a number of abridgments -- the shortest is 30 words! I commend this book to your attention, if you are concerned about economic justice, poverty, sprawl, energy use, pollution, wages, housing affordability. Its observations will change how you approach all these problems. A mind-opening experience!

Books I Value

Henry George: Progress and Poverty: An inquiry into the cause of industrial depressions and of increase of want with increase of wealth ... The RemedyThis is perhaps the most important book ever written on the subjects of poverty, political economy, how we might live together in a society dedicated to the ideals Americans claim to believe are self-evident. It will provide you new lenses through which to view many of our most serious problems and how we might go about solving them: poverty, sprawl, long commutes, despoilation of the environment, housing affordability, wealth concentration, income concentration, concentration of power, low wages, etc. Read it online, or in hardcopy.

Bob Drake's abridgement of Henry George's original: Progress and Poverty: Why There Are Recessions and Poverty Amid Plenty -- And What To Do About It!This is a very readable thought-by-thought updating of Henry George's longer book, written in the language of a newsweekly. A fine way to get to know Henry George's ideas. Available online at progressandpoverty.org and http://www.henrygeorge.org/pcontents.htm

Where Else Might You Look?

Wealth and WantThe URL comes from the subtitle to Progress & Poverty -- and the goal is widely shared prosperity in the 21st century. How do we get there from here? A roadmap and a reference source.

Reforming the Property Tax for the Common GoodI'm a tax reform activist who seeks to promote fairness and reduce poverty. Let's start with the enabling legislation and state requirements for the property tax. There are opportunities for great good!

Notes

9 posts categorized "free trade"

January 07, 2013

A paragraph from "To Destroy the Rum Power," by Henry George, in the February, 1890, issue of The Arena. (The full article follows this single eloquent paragraph.) --

"Almost universal sobriety," wrote Adam
Smith in Kirkaldy, somewhere in the early seventies of the eighteenth
century. Writing as the wonderful nineteenth century nears its final
decade and in the great metropolis of a mighty nation then unborn, I
can say no more, if as much. The temperance question does not stand
alone. It is related — nay, it is but a phase, of the great social
question. By abolishing liquor
taxes and licenses we may drive the "rum power" out of politics, and
somewhat, I think, lessen intemperance. Thus we may get rid of an
obstacle to the improvement of social conditions and increase the
effective force that demands improvement. But without the improvement
of social conditions we cannot hope to abolish intemperance.
Intemperance today springs mainly from that unjust distribution of
wealth which gives to some less and to others more than they have
fairly earned. Among the masses it is fed by hard and monotonous toil,
or the still more straining and demoralizing search for leave to toil;
by overtasked muscles and overstrained nerves, and under-nurtured
bodies; by the poverty which makes men afraid to marry and sets little
children at work, and crowds families into the rooms of tenement
houses; which stints the nobler and brings out the baser qualities; and
in full tide of the highest civilization the world has yet seen, robs
life of poetry and glory of beauty and joy. Among the classes it finds
its victims in those from whom the obligation to exertion has been
artificially lifted; who are born to enjoy the results of labor without
doing any labor, and in whom the lack of stimulus to healthy exertion
causes moral obesity, and consumption without the need of productive
work breeds satiety. Intemperance is abnormal. It is the vice of those
who are starved and those who are gorged. Free trade in liquor would
tend to reduce it, but could not abolish it. But free trade in
everything would. I do not mean a sneaking, half-hearted, and
half-witted "tariff reform," but that absolute, thorough free trade,
which would not only abolish the custom house and the excise, but would
do away with every tax on the products of labor and every restriction
on the exertion of labor, and would leave everyone free to do whatever
did not infringe the ten commandments.

It is worth noting that Frances Willard, a major figure in the temperance movement, published, in 1896, An Up-to-Date Catechism. She saw the connection between poverty and intemperance, and recognized that the Single Tax could make all the difference in making life better.

December 30, 2012

But the mortgage worked the hardest
and steadiest of them all;
It worked on nights and Sundays, it
worked each holiday;
It settled down among us and it never
went away.
Whatever we kept from it seemed almost as bad as theft;
It watched us every minute and it
ruled us right and left.
The rust and blight were with us
sometimes, and sometimes not;
The dark-browed,
scowling mortgage was forever on the spot.
The weevil and the cutworm they went
as well as came;
The mortgage stayed forever, eating
heartily all the same.
It nailed up every window, stood
guard at every door,
And happiness and sunshine, made
their home with us no more;
Till with falling crops and sickness
we got stalled upon the grade.
And there came a dark
day on us when the interest wasn't paid.
And there came a sharp foreclosure,
and I kind o' lost my hold.
And grew weary and discouraged and
the farm was cheaply sold.
The children left and scattered, when
they hardly yet were grown;
My wife she pined and perished, and I found myself alone.
What she died of was a mystery, and
the doctors never knew;
But I knew she died of mortgage — Just
as well as I wanted to.
If to trace a hidden sorrow were
within the doctors art.
They'd ha' found a mortgage lying on
that woman's broken heart.
Worm or beetle, drought
or tempest, on a farmer's land may fall.
But for a first-class
ruination, trust a mortgage 'gainst them all.

How much of a farmer's mortgage is for the value of the land itself, and how much for the present value of the improvements which previous owners have made, such as clearing, draining, fencing, irrigating, building structures, plus, perhaps, equipment purchased with the land and buildings?

For that matter, how much of a homeowner's mortgage is for the value of the land itself --including its access to community-provided services such as city water and sewer, fire hydrants, and the like -- and how much for the purchase price of the landscaping and structures on the property, built by any of the previous owners?

To what degree is the modern buyer including in his formal calculations or his underlying assumptions the notion that the land will increase in value during his tenure? (See Case & Schiller, 2003.)

July 27, 2012

Mr. Henry George first formulated this idea, which has grown steadily in favor, in 1879. Single-tax men assert as a fundamental principle that all men are equally entitled to the use of the earth; therefore, no one should be allowed to hold valuable land without paying to the community the value of the privilege. They hold that this is the only rightful source of public revenue, and they would therefore abolish all taxation - local, state and national - except a tax upon the rental value of land exclusive of its improvements, the revenue thus raised to be divided among local, state and general governments, as the revenue from certain direct taxes is now divided between local and state governments.

The single tax would not fall on all land, but only on valuable land, and on that in proportion to its value. It would thus be a tax, not on use or improvements, but on ownership of land, taking what would otherwise go to the landlord as owner.

In accordance with the principle that all men are equally entitled to the use of the earth, they would solve the transportation problem by public ownership and control of all highways, including the roadbeds of railroads, leaving their use equally free to all.

The single-tax system would, they claim, dispense with a horde of tax-gatherers, simplify government, and greatly reduce its cost; give us with all the world that absolute free trade which now exists between the States of the Union: abolish all taxes on private issues of money; take the weight of taxation from agricultural districts, where land has little or no value apart from improvements, and put it upon valuable land, such as city lots and mineral deposits. It would call upon men to contribute for public expenses in proportion to the natural opportunities they monopolize, and make it unprofitable for speculators to hold land unused or only partly used, thus opening to labor unlimited fields of employment, solving the labor problem and abolishing involuntary poverty.

If all men were so far tenants to the public that the superfluities of gain and expense were applied to the exigencies thereof, it would put an end to taxes, leave never a beggar and make the greatest bank for national trade in Europe.

March 10, 2012

FOR SINGLE TAXHenry George Men Hold a Mass Meeting at the Rink. Cleveland's Name Enthusiastically Cheered. Addresses by the Author of "Progress and Poverty," by Hon. Thomas G. Shearman, Rev. Hugh O. Pentecost, Louis F. Post and Others.

Another great audience gathered at the Clermont Avenue Rink last night to hear the discussion of political issues. It filled every seat in the big hall, crowded the platform and the galleries, choked the entrances and formed a dark dado around the sides of the room wherever standing place was available. It was the single tax men's night to own the speakers' platform, and the key to all that was said was conveyed in plain words above the speakers' desk: "Free Trade, Free Land, Free Men." The audience was not only large, but it was wide awake. It enjoyed the brass band and it listened attentively to every word of the single tax orators and cheered vociferously in the right places to show that a large proportion of the crowd was in sympathy with the sentiment expressed above the speaker's head. It had a habit of hissing, too, and whenever Mr. Blame, Mr. Andrew Carnegie or the Tory Government of England was mentioned it practiced this habit. The meeting was of citizens who favor the election of Cleveland and Thurman, and though less was said on this subject than on "Free Trade, Free Land and Free Men," the occasional mention of Mr. Cleveland's name left no doubt as to the sentiment of the vast assemblage regarding his candidacy. They cheered for him uproariously, spontaneously and untiringly. The slightest allusion to him called forth a, wild outbreak.

C. T. Christensen had agreed to preside at the meeting, but was called out of town at the last moment, and Thomas G. Shearman, who was booked as one of the speakers of the evening, acted as chairman. Beside him on the platform sat Henry George, the Rev. Hugh O. Pentecost, Louis F. Post, James Hickling and others of the shining lights of the Single Tax legions. Mr. Shearman called the meeting to order and said:

While we hope and trust that in this audience there are many Protectionists, that both sides of this great question are represented here, we wish it understood that on this platform we stand for no half way politics, no semi Protection, no false pretenses, no evasions. We are absolutely for Free Trade [applause] as we are for free land and for free men. In the old time of slavery the master would give everything to his slave rather than Free Trade. He would give him free whisky as the Republicans would give tree whisky to the white slaves of today. Slavery was a system of "Protection" to the inferior workman. The slave was protected in the liberty to work for his employer. The Irish people have had Protection. Within the last hundred years 80 statutes have been passed by a British Tory Parliament, composed mostly of Protectionists, furnishing "Protection" to Ireland, the very statute under which Dill on was imprisoned in an Irish jail without the privilege of a trial by jury or by any decent Judge was a "Protection" law. The Tory Parliament gave it the name Protection. But Irishmen called it Coercion. Mezeroffs paper, that preaches the assassination of innocent women and children, is being circulated by the First Ward Republicans, because of its advocacy of Protection. He should advocate this American system of Tariff, for it is simply coercion. Protection coerces the American workingman into assisting the development of monopolists and Trusts. It puts coercion upon him and upon American industry. It fosters no industry. It murders industry. What does a Tariff do? Can any one look me in the face and say it assures him better pay for his toil? It is simply coercion to prohibit you from carrying on an industry that brings you into relations with other nations. What does the Government do when it puts a "Protective" Tariff on coal? It says, You shall get no more coal for your labor than Mr. Elkins, Mr. Maine and the other coal monopolists shall allow you to have. The land owners of this country, those who have been sharp enough to get possession of the richly productive mining tracts, grind the manufacturers that grind you. You must first get $100,000 to put into a mine or manufactory to be protected under this American system. We are for Free Trade because it means the highest wages: because the history of this country shows that with every advance of the Tariff there has been a depression of wages. What stuff is talked to you about the importation of foreign goods throwing out of employment American workmen. The Protectionists shout that increased importations will drive out the gold of the country. There never was enough gold in this country to pay for a single year's importations. All the gold in the world would not buy the goods that have come across the ocean to this country in the last ten years. So what can't be done, in spite of the tearful arguments of Protectionists, won 't be done. In the last 27 years, since our Protective Tariff began, more gold has gone out of this country than during the years of '46 and '47, when we had Free Trade. When the Tariff reached its highest point the greatest amount of gold went out. The export of gold is merely a mercantile transaction. The other charge is that Free Trade will throw the American workman out of employment. If you could import $7,000,000,000 instead of $700,000,000 worth of goods the call for American labor would advance ten times what it is now. Why are Brooklyn and New York great manufacturing cities? Why are we more successful than Chicago or St. Louis? They have markets on both sides of the ocean, while by our system of Protection we are cut off from one side, it is because we, from our location, can get more readily material from across the ocean. If the mad scheme of the Protectionists could be carried out to shut out entirely this foreign material, and compel us to rely on our home production, what a blight would fall upon this city. Sweep away this Protection system and we would have all this foreign material brought in to work up, and would have two markets instead of one. Yet you will go on in one way or another "protecting." You might have liberty, freedom of trade and of commerce, and double the manufacturing business of those cities. You hear of the revenue reformer being converted into a Free Trader; of the moderate Protectionist into a revenue reformer, but in this campaign you read of no Free Trader being converted to Protection. Every gain the Republican party has made from the Democratic ranks has been of those men who opposed the freeing of the slave.

After the cheering had died away Mr. Post stepped forward upon the platform and amid renewed applause walked back and forth triumphantly. "Last night," he said , "Mr. McKinley stood upon this platform." [Laughter, applause and hisses.] Then an enthusiastic Republican got up and shouted "Three cheers for McKinley." In the confusion the crowd thought that he was yelling for Post and followed his lead with a will. Mr. Post continued:

I am glad to hear that demonstration for, in the first place, it shows that we have people here to convert, and in the second, because it is due him from Protectionists as the best representative of Chinese polities in the country. [Long continued cheers.] He says that the Tariff is not a tax, that it is paid by the man who sends his goods to this country to sell. The Tariff on firecrackers is 100%. I want Mr. McKinley to explain how much the Chinaman makes on his fireworks after he has paid that tax. Our Chinaman says we are absolute Free Traders. It is true there is no 7% about us. We are with the Democratic party because we get that little reduction from them, which is better than nothing and a step in the right direction. If we are to have trade, why should we not have it free. We have Free Trade all over the United States. In fact, here is the only example of absolute Free Trade in the whole world. I have a horse that I want to exchange for two mules. I can take him to New York, to Pennsylvania or New Jersey and make whatever terms I am able. It is only when a policeman comes alone and says I can't trade that I get Protection. If I desire to trade with a Canadian not only must I give him one horse for his mules, but I must give the Government another. What do they want of that other horse? They want to put him in the Treasury vaults or else compel me to go over into Pennsylvania and sell to someone, Carnegie for instance, who demands a horse and three-quarters for a couple of mules. [Laughter and applause.] But this man doesn't want the extra three-quarters to divide among his men who raise mules, unless they are organized and strong enough to make him. The employer always gets the bonus, and divides with his employes — when he thinks best. Workingmen are getting sick of being fooled about this notion that the Tariff gives them higher wages. Some, however, are afraid that shops will be closed and that foreign goods will run us out of the market. How can we buy foreign goods unless we have our own goods to exchange for them. This shop closing story is another great fraud. The truth is the monopolists have a soft thing, and they are going to hold on to it. That is what makes me think of a story. A darky was working at $5 a week for a Protectionist boss. One day he was in great trouble, for he had a dream. He told his employer, that he was dead and had gone to hell. "Well, that's a bad place," was the answer. "Did you see anyone there you knew?'' "Oh yes, lots of them." "Did you see any Protectionists?" "Yes, I did, and every one held a $5 darky between himself and the fire to keep off the heat." Nor do Protectionists like to let go their victims in this world. Every day we buy the necessities of life from whomsoever we please. We give for them the product of our labor, or its equivalent. We don 't want Protection in this trade. We had absolute Protection from outsiders when the Republican blizzard of last March came along and I for one didn't like it. About 3000 years ago the children of Israel were going through the wilderness. God sent quails to them from Heaven. It was all import and no export and almost everybody liked it. Finally Aaron went to Moses and said: "This invasion of quails ought to be stopped. I have an infant industry that must be protected. In short, I have started a little poultry yard." It was no use to put on an ad valorem duty of 100%, as suggested, because the quails had no money value, so it was determined to put on a specific duty of $5 a dozen. I don't wonder that you doubt this story and believe the incidents never happened. Well, the story is not true. Do you know why? Because Moses and Aaron led "the children of Israel through the wilderness, and not Blaine, Harrison or Carnegie. Whenever you tax a product of labor you make that commodity harder to get, but the more you tax land the cheaper it becomes. It is only by abolishing the tax on labor and coming down to a single land tax basis that we accomplish our great purpose. We shall then have cheap goods, cheap land, high wages and free men, for they all go together.

When Henry George rose to speak he was greeted with a thunder roll of applause. When it stopped for want of breath someone who had saved his lungs shouted lustily, "Three cheers for Henry George." They were given. "Three cheers for the 68,000" were called for, but failed, because the great single tax advocate had begun to speak. Mr. George said:

The gentleman says "Three cheers for the 68,000." He means the men who voted for me two years ago when I ran for Mayor of New York City. I ran as a candidate then for the purpose of introducing into our politics a principle. I ran because I believe it is only by political action and through political action that the emancipation of labor can be secured. For the very same reason that I was a candidate two years ago, from my belief in and my love for these same principles, I stand here to advocate the election of Grover Cleveland.

At the mention of the President's name there was a great roar of applause, beginning not gradually, but at its full volume, the instant the speaker had spoken the name. The cheering continued for more than a minute. Mr. George then continued:

I told you then that we needed the formation of no new party, but the revival of that party of the people which Thomas Jefferson called Republican and Andrew Jackson called Democrat, that party of equal rights that represents the true idea of a government for the people by the people. I never dreamed two years ago that I would now be standing here advocating the election of a Democratic candidate. I had not the confidence in the party that would allow me to believe that they could have given me the opportunity I now possess. Thanks to Grover Cleveland the Democratic party in this national contest again has raised the standard of Jeffersonian Democracy, timidly, it is true, falteringly. Only a 7% move. But we hail it as a beginning. We are for that 7%. Not for that alone, but because we know this movement, once started, can never be stopped. I trust my friend, the previous speaker, will live long enough to see the full consummation of his wishes. If he lives to three score years and ten I have faith by that time we will have swept all Tariff away. I have faith in that because I have faith in the American people. A fair discussion will bring death to Protection. The American people are nobody's fool. Protection is repugnant to the genius of American institutions. It existed in Europe before it was borrowed by us. It is an old scheme of monarchy and aristocracy. Free Trade is as much a right of the people as free speech. Protection should indeed be called coercion. We don't want Protection. The American idea is that each should support the church that pleases him best. No state church. Apply this to trade. Why should not those who believe in Protection take up a voluntary subscription for the infant industries? That would leave us all free men. Mr. McKinley said in this hall, so I am told, that Protection does not raise prices. If that is true, what does anyone want Protection for? The whole end and aim of Protection is to raise prices. When. I was a boy it was, indeed, Protection to infant industries. They ceased to talk about that later on. It used to be, a good while ago, Protection to American capitalists. But that, also, is of the past. Now it is Protection to labor. How they do love the laborer, these good monopolists, such as Andrew Carnegie! How does labor get this vaunted Protection? It doesn't get it. It goes to the employing producer. It is only when by some combination, trust or monopoly by which domestic as well as foreign competition is choked off that Protection yields its full value of protection — to the monopolist. It is not the profit his employer is making that fixes a man's wages. Not at all. It is the price at which the employer can get a man to take the workman's place. It is in the protected industries of our country that laborers have had to fight most and make the greatest efforts to escape being crushed to the wall. But I believe that now a spirit of self respect is awakened among American workingmen. Think of it. Is labor such a poor, helpless thing that it must have protection? Are the American people so inferior to the rest of the world that the industry of 60,000,000 people is to be jeopardized by the law of the British lion unless he is kept at bay by men in buttons? Trusts need protection but labor can protect itself if you only sweep away restrictions and give it a chance. This campaign is the opening of a discussion of all economic questions. The appeal of intelligence will not stop here. We have started on the road to freedom and I have sufficient faith in my countrymen to think that we will not stop till we reach the goal: till we have swept away every tax that deprives the worker of the fair result ot his work. We will make our one direct tax the means of breaking down monopoly. Every tax on the products of labor diminishes their amount. It is the same way with a tax on imports, which tends to lessen the aggregate amount of wealth there is for all and brings to some too much and to others too little. A tax on products requires more capital for carrying on the business. Indirect taxes were never objected to by the first person who paid them. Why were match manufacturers anxious to have the tax kept on? Because as in every other case the price was increased and the man with large capital had an advantage over the man with small. Under that scheme the man who begins as a laborer shall remain one. But there is a tax that takes from no one anything that is due him from his industry — that is the tax on land values. [Long continued applause.] The value of land differs essentially from that of anything produced by labor. This house has a value representing the labor required to put it up and the materials used. With the land on which the house stands the case is very different. That was not produced by labor. Yet the value of the land is ever increasing and that of the building decreasing. The increased value of the land has been produced not by industry, but by the number of people around here. It has been produced by the whole community, belongs to the whole community, and is therefore the proper basis for tax. Instead of promoting monopoly by our plan we are diminishing and destroying it, and we are making it harder for dogs in the manger to hold land that they cannot use. This is the absolute Free Trade at which we single tax men aim. We do not support Grover Cleveland because we imagine that he aims at any kind of Free Trade, nor because we imagine that the Democratic party favors it. But we support Grover Cleveland [cheers and applause] because this is the direction in which he is leading. We stand with the Democratic party because at last its face is turned in the right road, and it has only to keep on to become as Democratic as Thomas Jefferson himself. A gentleman said to me tonight as I came into this hall, "There are people in Brooklyn so stupid as to think the Cobden Club is running this campaign. "I am a member of the Cobden Club [great applause] and if they have any money they might send me a little. I am very willing to take it and use it. The only complaint I have is that the Cobden Club doesn't believe in Free Trade. They see what American Free Trade would do to them. In regard to this question I once said to an Englishman: Once our people are started they will never stop as in England. They will go on till Free Trade ultimates in free land and free men. When I was elected an honorary member of the Cobden Club I was very glad to accept as a mark of respect to Richard Cobden [applause], a man who sought to get justice for Ireland, a man who, when aristocratic England was on the side of the States that would break up the Union, saw in our side this light for freedon; the man that wanted to break down barriers that divide nations, to disband armies and unite the world by a fraternal bond of peace. When Gladstone is restored to power and Ireland has the restoration of home rule the movement for the natural and equal rights in land will spring up with power to grow. And this little movement here beginning with a 7% reduction will go on and on. I am proud to have lived to see this time. This is not a struggle for the protection of labor, but for the emancipation of labor; not to give a few monopolists a few more percent profit at the expense or their fellow citizens, but to give to all their full and equal rights of making this a republic worthy of a name, in which there shall be no master and no tramps, no monstrous fortunes or monstrous poverty, a republic in which there shall be room for all and abundance for all.

Your chairman has told you a truth. I do not believe in all the doctrines of Christianity, as perhaps you do not, but I have a perfect belief in the Founder of Christianity. If Jesus of Nazareth were on earth today He would be engaged in this work. This meeting was called under tho auspices of a single text — Cleveland and Thurman Campaign Committee. That is a combination that some in this audience may not understand. If the men who are thus ignorant have recovered from the shock of the recent remarks about Mr. Cobden they can be enlightened by my explanation. What do the single tax men desire? First, the abolition of every form of indirect taxation — the Tariff tax and the Internal Revenue tax. Indirect taxation is sneaking taxation. It sneaks into your house and taxes everything you use without your knowing you are being taxed. It is peculiarly in favor with despots. When a monarch wishes to raise money without disturbance he uses indirect taxation. It is cowardly. A man goes into a store and buys a suit ot clothes. Nothing is said about the tax on them as it is included in their price. Should a "man in buttons" meet you at the door of the clothing store and demand $10 tax of you for the clothes you had bought your indignation would know no bounds. It is easy to overtax the people by indirect taxation. The single tax men are opposed to the tax on products of labor. What we want is not less wealth, but more wealth. Our system keeps men from producing the very thing we stand in need of. It is idiotic. It punishes a man that does just the thing we want him to. Is he going to do the monstrous thing of building a house? We tax every step he takes, every nail and stick he buys. I know a man who wants to build a back kitchen on his house, but daren't do it for fear of the increased assessment. There is probably not a man in this house who is not at least once a year regularly a liar. Men who in church or family are too honorable, to stain their lips with a lie, yet swear to the tax assessor that they do not own certain property which they know they do. Even ministers who go to Europe and make many purchases there sometimes deceive the customs officers. But it is not his fault. A man goes to Europe and buys certain articles, then if he doesn't pay a fine to the Government they are taken away from him. This is on a par with the policy which taxes the most industrious of our people and makes the burden upon the owners of lots, vacant and rapidly rising in price, as light as possible. Any man who cannot see the absurdity of this policy is as blind as a bat. When Grover Cleveland said that "unnecessary taxation is unjust taxation," he told the truth. [Cheers and long continued applause.] We can prove from facts that it is unnecessary to tax the products of labor. We propose to put a tax upon the value or land. We believe in that single tax because it is right, and we never saw any one who could demonstrate that it wasn't right. A man produced this house, therefore it belongs to him. God produced the land; whom, then, does it belong to? [A voice: "God."] You are right: He has never given it away; He has never sold or willed it away. If the transfers cannot be shown we shall hold that it belongs to God. Between the land and the house is the value of land. Did God produce that? No, but the people did, and why does not the land belong to them? The house belongs to the man because he produced it. God produced the land and it belongs to all His children. What we want is for the people to stop the stealing from the man who owns the house and take what belongs to them. When the New York Sun in its wonderful wisdom says [hisses] that all the wealth of the country if divided equally would give but $800 to each inhabitant, don't you see that we want to produce wealth so that it will go around. The only way we can do that is by lessening not increasing the cost of Protection. You may shout again now if you choose for I am going to mention McKinley's name. [Hisses.] He tried to tell an audience in this hall last night that articles were made cheaper by laying on a tax. That is not so, as any one can see, but this is a fact. The more we tax land the cheaper it gets. We want to have land so cheap that when a workingman wants to build a house he will not have to spend his life in saving money to buy the lot. We want also to make it impossible for men to keep land vacant, to let it lie idle doing no one any good and increasing in price simply because more people are living near it each day. This is an increase in value to which no man has exclusive right. After we have got this reform established other reforms will come much easier. It has often been asked how it happens that we work with the Democratic party. I will tell you. Because we want all taxes removed. We want to get rid of the Protective Tariff first, then the revenue tax, till we get down to our single tax. The Democratic party has made a beginning, and that is a great thing to do after all the years of high Protective Tariff talk that has been poured into the ears of the workingmen. They have heard the Protection side of the story till they have begun to think that it must be true. Perhaps the truth has been impressed upon them more forcibly and terribly. A story is told of an Englishman who had been stopping at a hotel in the far West, and who finally asked for his bill. "Three dollars without potatoes, $4 with," was the reply. The Englishman said he thought the charges were exorbitant and growled considerably. Pulling a big pistol from his pocket the landlord told his guest to look out of the window. "Do you see that graveyard?" he inquired. Well, that place is filled with men who thought my charges were too high. What do you think now?" The Englishman expressed himself as very satisfied. So the American workingman is "satisfied" with the High Tariff robbery of the manufacturers, only, in this latter case the pistol is starvation which affects not himself alone, but wife and little ones. No wonder that under such circumstances the bosses' view has been the laborer's. You know what a fetish is? A savage worships in his cave. Every time he comes back from a hunt, fish, or fight successful he gives that miserable fetish all the credit. All his bad luck he attributes to other causes. As the savage grows more intelligent he drops his fetish. The Tariff is the fetish of the Protectionist. Just at this time Mr. Blaine is its great high priest and Benjamin and Levi are altar boys. All our fine weather, plentiful crops and beautiful women are due to the Tariff. I sometimes think that the old hymn should read as follows:

"Tis Protection that can give

Sweetest pleasures while we live; Tis Protection that can give Solid comfort when we die.

The rhyme is not just right, but I think you see the meaning. Like the Indian, the Protectionist doest not blame his fetish for the growling growing discontent in the ranks of labor, this dark shadow on the land. There are people who believe every good comes from Protection and every bad from some other causes. Just when this superstition was at its height Grover Cleveland walked into the temple. He did not quite dare to strike down the miserable fetish, but he slapped its face and said to the congregation; This thing you worship is a humbug." We honor him because of this, and because he brought on this great discussion that will not end until we have Free Trade in goods, free travel for men and free land for labor.

After Mr. Pentecost's speech half of the audience remained to hear Mr. George and the other speakers answer questions.

February 23, 2012

Man is a land animal as much as a fish is a water animal. Not only does man live on land but all of his wants are supplied by or from land. The earth is, literally, his mother. He will perish quickly if he has not access to the breast of his earth mother and will suffer and squall and become panicky if he has not free access to earth's breast and cannot obtain sufficient nutriment. His relation to land is fundamental and can be broken or disturbed only at great peril and loss to him and to society.

Production and consumption will always be in equilibrium and commerce and exchange will always flow smoothly, if all men at all times have equal and free access to nature's storehouse of wealth and if there are no dams -- tariff, -- etc. to interfere with the exchange of products. Free land and free trade are therefore, essential to economic justice; to give all an equal opportunity to produce goods and to exchange them without paying toll to anyone. When goods are produced and exchanged freely, it is reasonably certain that production and consumption will run so closely together that there can be no serious panics or long periods of depression. Serious maladjustment can and will occur only when production and exchange are interfered with and to the extent that they are interfered with.

The private ownership of land, that is, the taking of economic or land rent by private land owners, or landlords, most seriously interferes with some men's access to mother earth. Landlords are not only dogs in the manger; they are a class and about the only class, except the tariff beneficiaries, that consume without producing; that do not give a quid pro quo for what they get.

The capitalist supplies capital and is entitled to the interest that he gets. The laborer --wage, salary or fee earner -- produces goods or gives services and is entitled to what he gets in exchange. The landlord produces neither the land nor the land rent and is not, therefore, entitled to the rent that he takes. He is the only one who takes out of the economic pot without putting something into it. He is the only one who can and does live off the labor of others. He is the greatest of all economic leeches.

Professor Thorold Rogers said, in 1870:

"Every permanent improvement of the soil, every railroad and road, every bettering of the general condition of society, every facility given for production, every stimulus supplied to consumption, raises rent. The landowner sleeps, but thrives. He alone, among all the recipients in the distribution of products, owes everything to the labor of others, contributes nothing of his own. He inherits part of the fruits of present industry, and has appropriated the lion's share of accumulated intelligence."

If, as in ordinary times, the landlord takes only a moderate rent, that is, charges only the actual rental value of land to the capitalist and laborer who use land, production and consumption proceed normally, for society has fairly well adjusted itself to this unjust system. In times of great prosperity -- so-called -- when there is great speculation in land values and they rise rapidly, the landlords can and do take even more than the normal rental value of land; that is, more rent than is produced by society. Access to land then becomes so difficult and the prices that producers have to charge for food, clothing and shelter become so high that consumers are unable, after paying excessive rent, to purchase all of the goods produced. Hence, the glut in the market; the decline in the prices of commodities; the collapse of the over-extended credits; business failures; closed mills; idle labor and low wages. The business depression does not end until land values have declined to or below normal for the population. Soon thereafter business begins to revive, mills to open, unemployment to decrease, wages to advance and prosperity to return. Industry will continue on the up-grade until rents again become excessive. Most, if not all, periods of prosperity end with real estate booms. Even our present war prosperity will probably continue until there is a boom in city, farm, forest and mine land values.

January 24, 2012

The reader of a book review will rightly want to know the ideology of the reviewer. Very well: being of Georgist persuasion, I divide the "means of production" into two categories: those that can be produced or reproduced by competitors, and those that can't. On the former category, I'm as far Right as you can get, believing that such assets should be privately owned and exempt from tax, to encourage capital formation.

That brings us to the other category of "means of production" -- assets that can't be produced or reproduced by competitors. Georgists contend that the market values of such assets, being publicly created, are the proper source of public revenue. The most important example is land, whose value can be tapped by means of rates, "land tax" and "capital gains" tax.

Hazlitt doesn't have "land" in the index.

In three places in the text (ss. 11.4, 15.2 and 16.2), he lists the factors of production as land, labour and capital, but doesn't distinguish between them for purposes of argument. In s.16.2 he also mentions the "poorest land", "least competent farmers" (labour) and "poorest equipment" (capital), but again doesn't distinguish further.

Similarly in the chapter on credit, he doesn't care whether borrowed funds are spent on farms (land) or tractors (capital).

In s.15.2 he adds that for an economy in "equilibrium", these factors are limited "at any moment", thus glossing over the fact that the supply of capital can build up or decay. Although Hazlitt is usually said to be of the Austrian school, this snapshot view of "equilibrium" is neoclassical, not Austrian; it was pioneered by J.B. Clark for the purpose of making capital look like land, so that land could be called a form of capital. Hazlitt includes Clark in his recommended reading list.

Earlier (s.6.2), Hazlitt cites the "limited" supply of capital as an argument against government-guaranteed home mortgages, claiming that they cause "oversupply of houses as compared with other things" -- not that they pump up land prices.

But he mentions the need for capital accumulation elsewhere, especially in the chapter on saving, where his examples of "capital" include schools, colleges, churches, libraries, hospitals, private homes, and "the most wonderfully equipped factory", all of which include land components. This conflation of capital and land is neoclassical.

In contrast, Austrian economists emphasize that capital, unlike land, must be constantly renewed, that its life cycle may be long or short, and that loose monetary policy causes overinvestment in long-life capital, whose value then collapses, contributing to recessions.

Meanwhile Georgists notice that recessions follow bursting "property bubbles", which are really land bubbles because land prices, unlike prices of buildings (prime examples of "long-life capital"), are not constrained by construction costs.

Hazlitt's failure to make these distinctions may explain why his explanation for depressions (s.23.5) is so vague: "the real causes, most of the time, are maladjustments within the wage-cost-price structure... At some point these maladjustments have removed the incentive to produce, or have made it actually impossible for production to continue... Not until these maladjustments are corrected can full production and employment be resumed." All clear now?

Those who call themselves free-traders too often fail to apply their own standards to trade within their own countries. Witness those misnamed "free trade agreements" in which each country promises to impose the other's monopolies on its own citizens.

Hazlitt falls into this error in chapter 4, where he considers an extra bridge between Easton and Weston and declares that "For every dollar that is spent on the bridge a dollar will be taken away from taxpayers." Not necessarily, because any such bridge will lower barriers to trade between Easton and Weston, especially the indispensable trade between employers and employees.

The benefit of the additional trade, net of any bridge tolls, will be shown in prices of access to locations served by the bridge -- in other words, land values. If the benefit exceeds the cost, it will be possible to cover the cost by clawing back a sufficient fraction of the uplift in land values, in which case the cost, although clawed back through the tax system, will not be "taken away from the taxpayers" but will be part of the new value created by the bridge.

The rest of that new value will be a net windfall to the property owners.

Hazlitt then turns to the Norris Dam (a New Deal project) and rubbishes the claim that "private capital could not have built it", because it was indeed built by private capital "expropriated in taxes... taken from people all over the country", causing the loss of "the private power plants, the private homes, the typewriters and television sets" that the expropriated funds might otherwise have bought. Thus the people of one district got richer at the expense of the rest of the country.

But it didn't have to be done that way. The earlier Don Pedro dam (completed 1923) was built by two Californian irrigation districts and financed entirely by local land-value taxes. The affected land owners were fiercely in favour of it because they knew the increase in their land values would outweigh the taxes. Even if the land-value taxes had been imposed by a higher level of government, the financing of the dam would still have been local, because only the local land values would have been affected by it. Private capital did not build it, because the uplift in land values that paid for it would not have occurred without it. Private agencies could not have organized it, because they would have had no way of tapping the uplifts in land values.

With an eye to current debates, I should conclude by praising Hazlitt for an insight that his latter-day admirers have ignored.

In explaining why "Taxes Discourage Production" (chapter 5), he says:

"When a corporation loses a hundred cents of every dollar it loses, and is permitted to keep only 52 cents of every dollar it gains, and when it cannot adequately offset its years of losses against its years of gains, its policies are affected." If individual investors "lose the whole dollar when they lose, but can keep only a fraction of it when they win," they are less likely to take risks.

September 20, 2011

I thought this presentation -- made nearly 100 years ago, in December, 1911, to County Assessors in California -- worth sharing. (Merriam-Webster defines plunderbund as "a league of commercial, political, or financial interests that exploits the public.") That such a paper would be delivered to such a body gives one a hint of how widely understood and appreciated Georgist ideas were 100 years ago. The notes say:

"Mr. Edmund Norton presented a paper entitled "What is Single Tax?" Upon conclusion of the reading, which was interspersed with many extemporaneous remarks by the speaker, a very free discussion of the subject was held, and many interrogatories propounded to the author of the paper."

I'll give you the final paragraphs first, and then the whole talk.

Never, while the world lasts, will mankind become "Masters, lords and rulers" of themselves till these public values are publicly absorbed in taxation. The Single Tax is the most feasible, practical, expedient, simple, natural and just way of making the necessary, rational change without the violence of revolution. It stands "four square to all the winds that blow" — in economics, and politics; in ethics, morals and religion; in principle, science and philosophy; it is the practical application of Christianity to social affairs. "Equal Rights to All and Special Privileges to None," is the translation of the Golden Rule of the Nazarene to an economic and political formula. Therefore, fulfilled democracy is applied Christianity to governmental affairs.

"Do unto others as ye would that they should do to you," "Equal Rights to all and special privileges to none"; the Single Tax: these are synonymous.

Here we have the great Eleventh Commandment of the Master of Nazareth — the sum total of all "the Law and all the prophets" — we have its Jeffersonian formulation into a politico-social maxim of "Equal rights to all," and its scientific practical application in the Single Tax of Henry George. This is applied Christianity; this is democracy; this is Georgean philosophy; this is the Single Tax; different expressions of the one Unity.

and here's the whole thing:

WHAT IS THE SINGLE TAX?

The Georgean Philosophy and the Jeffersonian Formula. By Edmund Norton.

Never in the history of the world have there been so many inquiring minds asking: "What is the Single Tax and the Georgean Philosophy?" In England, Germany, Australia and Canada, as elsewhere, the constructive work of the leading statesmen is all being developed along the lines laid down by Henry George. To my mind, "The Prophet of San Francisco," as he was derisively dubbed by the Duke of Argyle, is, measured by his influence on the world of statesmanship, present and future, and as a sociological thinker, the greatest personality in the Western world between the North Pole and Patagonia since Columbus found the land. Henry George has found more continents than did Columbus by uncovering monopoly-submerged lands in the presence of which we hungered and died.

This paper is meant to merely outline the principles and philosophy of the great school of thought that has grown up in the last thirty years around its teachings that now has a literature of its own that will fill a library.

The Single Tax is the popular name of the great fiscal reform and social philosophy most powerfully promulgated by our great American, Henry George, sometimes called "the Prophet of San Francisco."

WHAT IT PROPOSES TO DO.

Its purpose is to increase wages to the full returns or earnings of labor; to shorten the hours necessary to earn a living; to leave to capital, which is secondary labor, its full returns, which are secondary wages; to abolish monopoly, which is the thief that is robbing both labor and capital, and thereby prove the unity and remove the apparent antagonisms which have no place in a natural order where monopoly does not exist. It will free production, including all trade, barter and exchange, which are but processes of production, and will equalize the distribution of wealth into the possession only of those who can earn it. It will destroy privilege by substituting equal natural rights, remove the dead hand from the control of living men; throw open the limitless natural resources of the planet to willing labor, and, by taking all social creations of value into the social treasury, will conserve all natural resources forever to the people and make private appropriation of public values impossible. This condition will start a boom that will never stop till every human want is satisfied.

It will make internecine and international wars impossible by destroying all trade and monopoly privileges which are the chief causes tempting the crafty, cunning and unscrupulous to create or encourage these sum totals of all vices, crimes and horrors against humanity for personal power and profit.

THE METHOD OF ATTAINMENT.

The Single Tax does not intend to add to or multiply the already almost infinite statutory enactments now confusing and befuddling the social state, but rather means to abolish, one after the other, every law on the statute books granting a special privilege to any one man or body of men that is at the expense of the unprivileged mass of society. This will destroy the petty and grand larceny now preying upon the social body.

Aside from the million of petty privileges granted by municipalities, states and the nation to individuals, the great and glorious pillage shows itself in privileges and monopoly in labor-saving inventions, trade restrictions and the private ownership of natural resources, the major part of which is a matter of taxation; therefore, the Single Tax would abolish all taxes on barter, trade, exchange, personal property and improvements, commensurately raising all taxes from the value of land alone, till there was in existence but one single tax upon the value of bare land exclusive of improvements. This would be a single tax on land value — not on land, for some land would pay no tax while other land would pay much tax.

For instance, one acre of land worth a million dollars would pay as much tax as a million acres worth only one dollar per acre.

SQUARES WITH THE MORAL LAW.

The Single Tax is ethically sound in application for the simple reason that all labor-created wealth is the result of individual effort and leaving that wealth untaxed would be leaving to the individual only that which belonged to him by his right to himself and to that which he himself creates; while taking into the public treasury only those values which society creates in its collective capacity would be leaving to society only that which belongs to it, for no individual on earth, by himself, can create land values.

At present we compound injustice by permitting private individuals to appropriate what society creates and then society turns about and deprives the individual of his private creation to support the governments whose existence makes possible the public values privately appropriated.

This basic injustice results in a fundamental disturbance of the equilibrium of society, showing itself in numberless evils — economic, social, political, physical, mental and moral.

Mistaken symptoms for disease, effects for causes, we have numerous social quacks pressing forward with innumerable nostrums — palliative, alleviative, suppressive or curative of the particular symptoms they have noted — each claiming he has found a remedy and each ready to cure the world with a salve, bandage, pill or liniment.

The diseased social body can be cured only by removing the cause and restoring it to a normal condition. Monopoly and Special Privilege is all that the social body suffers from today, and destruction of Monopoly and Special Privilege will cure it. Equal rights to All and Special Privilege to None is the only magic remedy. Apply this, make man free and equal before the law and the Divine Mind operating through nature will do the rest.

JEFFERSON'S FORMULA.

Thomas Jefferson's was probably the greatest democratic mind of his age and the equal of any age. If we examine the Jeffersonian formula we will find it the square, level and compass, without which no nation can ever be permanently founded., The natural rights of man, "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," we must take for granted, and the right of revolution — also put forth in the immortal document — "the Right of the People to alter or to abolish and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness" we must also take for granted.

The constitution — itself a reactionary document, taking away from the people perhaps 75% of the liberties gained in the war of 1776 — still leaves us the power to apply the golden rule of democratic thought to our government without violence — for which we may be thankful.

EQUAL RIGHTS; NO SPECIAL PRIVILEGE.

If we view the recent, present and past history of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Colorado, Springfield, New York, Albany, Pittsburg, and the nation at large, we will have to confess that now and for fifty years past, at least, municipality, state and nation have been passing through a Saturnalia of public pillage by Special Privileges working through varying forms of oligarchic, partisan and political control. The government has been wrested from the hand of Democracy by Plutocratic privileges.

Applying the rule of Equal Rights to All, we clearly see that while these rights exist, the power to exercise them has been nullified; therefore, all of these reforms such as the Initiative, Referendum, Recall, Commission Government for cities, Direct Primaries and Popular Senatorial elections, are democratic efforts for the restoration of the Mechanics of Government into the hands of Equal Citizens.

I say the Mechanics of Government, for in no sense will the people be at all benefited permanently, even by the perfection of these reforms, which are but tools of government to develop efficiency of popular expression, unless they grasp these economic truths and change or readjust economic conditions. Indeed they might be worse off, for having captured these means completely, they might mistake them for ends, and believing their victory full, might slumber while being worse pillaged, which has been the case in the past.

I wish to inject here one pertinent suggestion — cities, within themselves, should have absolute right to exert self-government in all things within their borders that do not infringe upon the equal freedom of other cities, the state or nation, especially in matters of taxation.

SOME FISCAL FACTS OF LOS ANGELES (1910).

Having eliminated, then, the mechanics of government, suppose we apply our rule to the fiscal and economic conditions existing in our city of Los Angeles, and nearly every other city.

During the last fiscal year we raised about $5,000,000 in taxes imposed on land values, improvements, personal property and license — fines, which amounted to some $650,000. Now, there is no civic, fiscal or economic excuse for license, business and occupation fines other than police regulation or revenue raising.

Police regulations have no reason for existence except to protect the citizens from infringement on his equal rights, and to grant a special privilege under any name whatever for some persons to possess to the exclusion of other persons, is a wrong that breaks our golden rule of Democracy and should be abolished on that ground alone.

For Government to grant these powers of wrong doing on receipt of a stipulated share of the profits of the wrong, is to participate in, sanction and legalize the wrong and thereby corrupt society at its fountain head by official and statutory enactments.

Again, varying the cost of these granted privileges from $1.00 to $200.00 or more per month is absurdly unjust, unequal and discriminative, for or against certain businesses, making another breach of the rule calling for their abolition.

The effect of these fines is to act as trade restrictions, as interference with production, and to centralize business in the hands of a dominant privileged class. They are national protective tariff superstitions localized for the benefit of civic plunder.

Here I wish to call your attention to a vital, absolute, commercial and economic law: ''All taxes on things produced by human exertion enter into the cost of production and are paid for by the ultimate consumer."

If we grasp this fact in its fullness we will see that these fines and taxes effect not so much the middlemen who are compelled by this inexorable law to add them to the price, as it does the ultimate consumer, who is the whole body of society. Thus we do not hit the one we imagine, but simply strike ourselves.

To abolish them would be to free trade, diffuse business, accelerate its activity and lower prices to the ultimate consumer, permitting him to retain a greater amount of his earned wealth.

If we could so emphasize this one law as to make all see it, the ideals of democracy would be here.

I have laid particular stress on this all-important law because it applies not only to license fines but to all personal property and improvement taxes — on everything made by man. Therefore, in all forms of wealth in course of production there are no real taxpayers but the ultimate consumers — the intermediary is only a tax shifter. This is vital.

The Single Tax would abolish all these taxes; so would the Jeffersonian formula. In the two we have a principle and a method for its practical application.

To extend this practical application of the Democratic Principle to all things — including the international tariff — would immediately destroy the nightmare of high prices and flood the world with limitless possibilities of trade. This trade is now stifled and vast amounts of wealth are wrongly diverted to the possession of those who do not create or earn it.

The question arises: Where would you get the money to run the government if the Single Tax theory were put into operation? Of course! Why, there would be no place to get it except from land values. Here is something fastened to the world — possibly by the "Big Nail" of the North Pole — anyway it is where it can be seen; it can't run away, hide in a hole nor be loaned to a convenient friend in an adjoining county when the assessor comes around.

The millions of varieties and values of other forms of property being eliminated, scientific simplicity would be possible in taxation. Taking into the public treasury publicly created values in the form of a tax and leaving in the possession of private individuals their private creations, by tax exemptions, would square with the moral law. Incidentally, "Conservation of natural resources" would become an accomplished fact in city, state and nation; for the taxing power involved in the private possession of the "Unearned Increment," "Land Values," "Economic Kent," or "Ground Rent," is a governmental power now privately possessed, obtained by grant, theft or tax evasion. It is a special privilege held only by land owners — the abolition of which is necessary to the restoration of equal rights to all.

The private possession of a governmental privilege is, moreover, the prime motive — the chief incentive — to all the speculative holdings of idle city lots, agricultural, mining, timber, coal and oil lands, and all other natural resources. It is responsible for 90% of the speculative gambling that is prostituting city councils, state legislatures, the national government and even threatening the judiciary itself.

In fact, this basic injustice is at the bottom of 90% of all the vice, crime and graft — public and private — from which society is now suffering. The removal of the cause by the socialization of land values through the application of the Single Tax, would destroy the incentive, divert the evil tendencies to the best instead of the worst in society, displace an abnormal condition by a normal one, and cut out, eventually, the 90% of evil which we now deplore. The victories opening to us under these possible conditions are only picturable by the poet or the seer.

The Single Tax will remove unjust conditions by a rational, expedient process of readjustment. It will restore to the individual his freedom and to the state its own values.

The right to "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness," "Equality of Opportunity," "Equality of Rights," and destruction of Special Privilege, all demand its enactment as the only natural and perfectly sane method of squaring these demands.

The equal right to life can never be guaranteed until equal right to the natural opportunities upon which that life depends is also guaranteed. A denial of one is the denial of the other.

The opening up of the limitless storehouse of nature on this continent alone, by the destruction of its monopoly, would be equivalent to discovering several new continents.

Labor and capital, unrestricted, would flow to these opportunities as the sparks fly upward. Relieved of the pressure at the bottom and congestion of trade restriction removed from the top, who can tell the wonderful possibilities of America?

Here, toward the last, we come in contact with another vital related problem: that of the functions and ownership of highways — national, state, county and municipal.

These highways are, in organ and function, to the social body, what veins, arteries and nerves are to the human body. They are the channels of communication and transportation for persons, property and intelligence. Interference, restriction, congestion — all tend to varying disorders in the social body. Perfect freedom to normal action is the solvent. Private control of a public function is privileged ownership of a governmental power which should never be tolerated in a state of equal freedom. In fact, equal freedom is impossible where special privileges of government are farmed out to private individuals.

It will be noted that practically all private possessions of land on the continent, except those facing free waterways, are criss-crossed, intersected and separated by these highways. Theoretically we can easily see that, should we grant absolute ownership of highways to one individual — even were every other adjustment on earth perfected — that one individual would be master of the continent, for no possible intercommunication of persons, property, or intelligence could take place on, by, through or across these arteries and nerves without his consent, which condition, if submitted to, would make him sole arbiter of the world.

What is true of the whole is fractionally true of any part. We can never establish Equality of Right till absolute freedom of highway is guaranteed. Private possession of highways is no more necessary to private possession of property than is private possession of the ocean necessary to private ownership of ships.

In fact, the rights of private property are abrogated when governmental power to exact tribute from private property is granted to a privileged few; therefore, "Equal Rights to All and Special Privilege to None,'' demand the application of the Georgean philosophy to highway functions as a democratic and not a socialistic measure.

When we remember that these privileges now controlled (facts of 1900 since accentuated) by the national steam railways alone are capitalized at $8,000,000,000 in excess of the $5,000,000,000 of actual cost, we can see the enormity of one form of special privilege and the corresponding abrogation of natural property rights.

In passing, I will say that there are three practical methods by which these rights may be restored.

(1) Government control, ownership and operation of entire systems;

(2) Government control, ownership and operation of roadbeds only through official control of despatching service — leaving free operation of untaxed capital in all else, or:

(3) Public taxation of all incomes and values in excess of current rate of interest on actual capital — said capital otherwise untaxed.

The practical applications of these principles are mere matters of detail, expediency and policy. The brains that organize and manipulate these gigantic social plunders in all their minutia, can just as well work out the details of public restitution when deprived of activity in private depredations — and would be glad of the job.

Applied, this would mean the destruction of special privilege in national railways, telegraph, telephone, street railways, water, light, heat, power and all other monopolies of highway function.

This, with absolute free trade and the taxation of land-values through all other things being exempt, would mean the complete abolition of "Special Privilege" in all things; the institution of "Equal Rights" the "Conservation of Natural Resources,'' and the restoration of "Equal Opportunity to All." When all this is done — and never until it is done — there will be left nothing but the individual problem for man to solve.

Again let me interject a vital suggestion: Had we absolute free trade — international, state and local — including absolute freedom of highways, which is but an extension of freedom of trade — in truth, had we reached perfection in production — for this all means freedom in production — had we all these things while still leaving the "Unearned Increment, or Economic Rent,'' in the hands of the land-owner — there would be no permanent benefit to society except that incident to the transitional period of readjustment. Eventually all these wonderful benefits would clearly raise nothing but land-values and make the plunderbund richer and mightier than ever. The rise and fall of land values measure all the advances of civilization and their private appropriators are the "Masters, lords and rulers in all lands'' of whom the poet spoke.

Never, while the world lasts, will mankind become "Masters, lords and rulers" of themselves till these public values are publicly absorbed in taxation. The Single Tax is the most feasible, practical, expedient, simple, natural and just way of making the necessary, rational change without the violence of revolution. It stands "four square to all the winds that blow" — in economics, and politics; in ethics, morals and religion; in principle, science and philosophy; it is the practical application of Christianity to social affairs. "Equal Rights to All and Special Privileges to None," is the translation of the Golden Rule of the Nazarene to an economic and political formula. Therefore, fulfilled democracy is applied Christianity to governmental affairs.

"Do unto others as ye would that they should do to you," "Equal Rights to all and special privileges to none"; the Single Tax: these are synonymous.

Here we have the great Eleventh Commandment of the Master of Nazareth — the sum total of all "the Law and all the prophets" — we have its Jeffersonian formulation into a politico-social maxim of "Equal rights to all," and its scientific practical application in the Single Tax of Henry George. This is applied Christianity; this is democracy; this is Georgean philosophy; this is the Single Tax; different expressions of the one Unity.